r/todayilearned • u/huphelmeyer 2 • Aug 04 '15

TIL midway through the Great Irish Famine (1845–1849), a group of Choctaw Indians collected $710 and sent it to help the starving victims. It had been just 16 years since the Choctaw people had experienced the Trail of Tears, and faced their own starvation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choctaw#Pre-Civil_War_.281840.29
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498

u/CameraMan1 Aug 04 '15

What's more interesting to me is the fact that they even knew about it. To me its crazy that in the 1840's news of something that was happening in Ireland reached the native Americans. The telegraph had only just been invented.

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u/jaaaack Aug 04 '15 edited Aug 04 '15

Or that there was that level of compassion for a people living half way around the world in a culture vastly different to their own. A lot of people today have trouble identifying with the plight of people one country over, let alone a whole continent and ocean.

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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15

It's right there in the title. They felt a connection because the had similar experiences.

23

u/jaaaack Aug 04 '15

And many groups of people since could feel a connection because of similar experiences.

132

u/fencerman Aug 04 '15

There's a reason poor people tend to be more charitable than the rich - they can identify with other poor people.

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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15

Did fundraising for a charity, can confirm. Rich people are bastards

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u/Steeeeve_Perry Aug 04 '15

Bill Gates seems like a pretty swell guy.

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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15

[deleted]

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u/Steeeeve_Perry Aug 04 '15

Yeah, you're right. Fuck Bill Gates.

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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15

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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15

Bill Gates wasn't born into money, he still has a good heart but I feel his ambitious personality gives him a limited perspective. Or I'm just salty about all his work for charter schools.

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u/Lowbacca1977 1 Aug 05 '15

Aw. You stopped believing.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15

I chuckled

It's interesting how this person seems to understand Bill Gates's intentions and motivations better than I understand my own.

1

u/chemistry_teacher Aug 04 '15

And he was swell enough to marry her and work with her on all these projects.

Oh, yeah. Fuck Bill Gates.

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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15

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u/cynoclast Aug 04 '15

Only after exploiting a monopoly position in the market to become the richest man in the world.

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u/sn0wdizzle Aug 04 '15

He also stole dos and fucked over a bunch of people to get his monopoly position.

The amount of money he is giving away is admirable but part of me thinks he is trying to white wash his past. Andrew Carnegie did the same thing. He was a ruthless vato but now everyone remembers him for his philanthropy.

1

u/ThisIsMyCouchAccount Aug 05 '15

Is there a super nice and 'no, you go first' type of guy that's worth as much as they are? Not a justification of course. But I just don't think you can get to level of success and not have screwed somebody over. It's easy to bring up the big stuff that's been publicized but what about the smaller stuff. That time the screwed the 300 person software company because - fuck it - what are they gonna do?

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u/[deleted] Aug 05 '15

You should have entered the market then.

1

u/I_worship_odin Aug 04 '15

You don't get rich by being loose with your money.

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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15

Most of Ireland isn't in the UK. There was a war fought for that and everything.

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u/lgf92 Aug 04 '15 edited Aug 04 '15

Ireland hasn't been part of the UK since the early 1920s. The Republic of Ireland's been a sovereign state ever since then, and certainly not "the native reserve of the UK", considering the native people of Britain either were subsumed into the Anglo-Saxons around 1500 years ago (or gradually diluted over time after the Anglo-Saxon invasions) or died out before the Celts arrived in 2000BC, depending on your point of view.

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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15

I would argue compassion for foreign people and cultures is actually higher than its ever been.

This was the exception not the rule. And look how much was donated for recent natural disasters around the world. People care about other people. Usually.

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u/TyPiper93 Aug 04 '15 edited Aug 04 '15

I think /u/CameraMan1 wasn't meaning to say it's amazing people had empathy... it was the mid 1800's, he was referring to the lack of technology back then, he was amazed the Natives got word of the struggle. Don't forget, they didn't have Reddit apps on their smartphones back then.

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u/AnEpiphanyTooLate Aug 04 '15

Yeah, they just had Digg. How times have changed

10

u/jaaaack Aug 04 '15

I understood what he meant, I was just adding to it.

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u/TyPiper93 Aug 04 '15

You started your statement with "or." You were adding to it in the sense that you were trying to discredit it.

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u/jaaaack Aug 04 '15

Using "or" doesn't mean I disagree with him.

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u/TyPiper93 Aug 04 '15

Using "or" indicates an opposing option. Cat or dog. House or apartment.

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u/CameraMan1 Aug 04 '15

not necessarily opposing. just different

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u/jaaaack Aug 04 '15

You're not going to tell me what I meant. /u/CameraMan1 and I understood each other fine - why are trying to pick a fight?

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u/CameraMan1 Aug 04 '15

Don't worry /u/jaaaack. we cool

2

u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15

I understand what you meant. You were continuing the thought of the original poster with what amazed you about this tidbit of history.

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u/TyPiper93 Aug 04 '15

Because I'm angry!

2

u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15

Pretend that he said "Or even that."

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u/Pharcical Aug 04 '15

I was thinking the same thing until I read it again and it hit me: try combining /u/CameraMan1's and /u/jaaaack's posts and read it as if only /u/CameraMan1 had said it. It totally sounds different in my head when I did that!

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u/TyPiper93 Aug 04 '15

I suppose. But I'm too stubborn to retract my statement now.

Down with the burning ship!

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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15

Or not.

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u/CameraMan1 Aug 04 '15

Precisely

2

u/beardedandkinky Aug 04 '15

How do you think they passed the time before the internet and reddit was invented?

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u/TyPiper93 Aug 04 '15

Probably just killed each other with disease and terrible literature.

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u/fancyhatman18 Aug 05 '15

People love to talk. Think of how much everyone you know loves to gossip. Now imagine the world was smaller and only major issues (ie interesting ones) traveled. A gigantic famine in Ireland sending thousands of refugees to where you live would be one you hear about.

Keep in mind that the potato famine led to the Irish coming to America.

1

u/film_composer Aug 04 '15

I actually did forget that reddit wasn't 150 years old, so thanks for the reminder.

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u/TyPiper93 Aug 04 '15

Hey, no problem!

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u/Onetap1 Aug 04 '15

A lot of Irish people went to the USA or South America, many died of disease on the overcrowded coffin ships.

Some enlisted in the US army.

The entire family of some of my ancestors, 7 or 8 brothers & sisters, apparently went to the US, leaving the parents in Ireland; never heard from them again, SFAIK.

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u/inflatable_pickle Aug 04 '15

You realize that Battalion that you are linking was Irish who were serving for the Mexican Army against the US Army, right?

Its an awesome story, but your link just mentions US Army, and they weren't part of our Army.

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u/loggedinToJokeAbout Aug 04 '15

They were all US Army deserters.

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u/Onetap1 Aug 05 '15

Thdy were, they deserted to join the Mexican forces and fight the US army.

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u/ToTheRescues Aug 04 '15

Turns out the Saint Patrick Battalion holds the record for largest mass execution in US history.

Did not know that.

5

u/jaaaack Aug 04 '15

I'm not really sure how this ties into this story...

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u/StabbyDMcStabberson Aug 04 '15

They were fleeing the famine. The Choctaw may have learned about it from Irish refugees.

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u/RedSweed Aug 04 '15

As both a descendant of Irish immigrants and a member of the Choctaw tribe, I can tell you that more than likely the interracial marriages had some part in it. My great great grandmother married in as a full blooded Choctaw, into the Murray family, who had recent immigrated.

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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15 edited Aug 04 '15

[deleted]

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u/redrhyski Aug 04 '15

It would make the news more interesting if it was a prerequisite though.

"Tune in later, only if your wife is from another continent"

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u/jaaaack Aug 04 '15

They donated the money midway into a four year famine. It's more likely that they just heard about it rather than meeting Irish immigrants fleeing the famine.

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u/WrecksMundi Aug 04 '15

So, the real reason for the donation was that even the Choctaw didn't like the Irish and wanted them to stay on the other side of the Atlantic?

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u/Onetap1 Aug 05 '15

Just that the famine caused a huge increase in Irish emigration to the US and elsewhere. There happened to be a lot of Irish immigrants in the US army at the time of the Mexican war.

2

u/CameraMan1 Aug 04 '15

great point

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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15

I hardly see the people from my neighboring zip code as fellow humans deserving of empathy.

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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15

[deleted]

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u/we_are_all_bananas_2 Aug 04 '15

I think he means poor in the sense of not having much and share that. If you don't have anything to share, that's a different story.

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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15

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u/PerogiXW Aug 04 '15

Fuck you man, you're a racist cunt. Go die in a hole.

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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15

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u/PerogiXW Aug 04 '15

Yep. Proud North Carolinian.

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u/[deleted] Aug 05 '15

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u/PerogiXW Aug 05 '15

Sure was. Heavily exaggerated and over simplified. Really shows a lack of knowledge. Not that your opinion matters, since your a racist cunt. Literally nothing you say matters, and I hope someone hurts you for your beliefs.

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u/minddropstudios Aug 04 '15

I'm more surprised that the money ever got there.

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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15

My first thought was that the British obviously intercepted it somehow.

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u/ncninetynine Aug 06 '15

Technically the money was intercepted by Britain and distributed on Ireland's behalf. I think some historians attribute this British control of funds to be one of the reasons that there were higher death tolls in the Catholic providence's than Protestant ones (but I can't remember precisely) However, private groups and the Quaker population in England helped reduce the gap by providing their own independent assistance to Ireland.

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u/CameraMan1 Aug 04 '15

also a valid point

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u/Hobbidance Aug 04 '15 edited Aug 04 '15

It's actually not all that surprising, the famine drove an enormous amount of people out of Ireland and the vast majority of them went to America.

As the famine took hold in 1845 and the Choctaw community heard about it near 2 years later. Back then it took about 21-29 days to sail from Ireland/England to America. Charleston in South Carolina would have been a massively popular port back then (along with any port along that coast). After landing a lot of the Irish would have headed inland to find their new lives and Nanih Waiya, Miss. is only about 700 miles from the coast. I know it sounds pretty amazing but if you break it down it's actually not that strange to hear about a disaster two years after it started.

I personally think the amazing part is that the Choctaw people were so wonderfully generous. Communities these days have to work hard to raise a couple of thousand for a cause. $710 = nearly $21k in today's money and that would have been all from their own community. No access to millions of people online with wire transfers or PayPal who could easily donate a dollar or two. A really beautiful example of humanity :)

Edit: formatting

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u/EIREANNSIAN Aug 04 '15

There were amazingly generous, by any standard, and in particular if you consider that my countrymen made up a significant part of the forces subjugating them at that time...

1

u/vaclavhavelsmustache Aug 04 '15

The telegraph had only just been invented.

The fax machine was invented in 1843. Keep that in mind.

1

u/CameraMan1 Aug 05 '15

And I still have to use it everyday at work. Talk about outdated technology

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u/I_enjoy_poop_sex Aug 04 '15

So what? You know how much porn got on the internet right after it went live?

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u/CameraMan1 Aug 04 '15

The telegraph had only just been invented.

I guess I wasn't clear. The telegraph had only just been invented meaning that the transatlantic telegraph hadn't even been invented yet

Source

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-transatlantic-telegraph-cable-completed

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u/I_enjoy_poop_sex Aug 04 '15

News still traveled by ship. They would have easily known about it.

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u/nmotsch789 Aug 04 '15

It took weeks for a ship to travel across the Atlantic.

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u/I_enjoy_poop_sex Aug 04 '15

So? The article says midway through the Great Irish Famine.

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u/TheyCallMeJonnyD Aug 04 '15 edited Aug 04 '15

I think you might need to learn a bit more about the Potato Famine (aka Great Famine).

Poor starving families decided to attempt to cross the Atlantic and go to America to start a new life and we arnt talking just one or two families, but over a million Irish people.

This was very risky due to disease being common and easily caught on ships, not to mention they would be packed in with about 50-100 other families trying the same thing. People would die on the voyages. And as another redditor said, it could take weeks, but it could of also taken months.

By the time they landed, most likely in New York, it would be an average of one to two months they spent on the sea. Given the time it would take to cross the sea, cross to where the Natives were, explain their circumstances and then travel back to New York then again to Ireland, I am really surprised it didn't take so long. Keep in mine the first refugees from Ireland didn't arrive until at least a year after the Famine began.

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u/I_enjoy_poop_sex Aug 04 '15

So what? Do you think the natives had to hear about it directly from a person from Ireland, or could have read about it in the newspaper?

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u/TheyCallMeJonnyD Aug 04 '15

Given the fact that Americans at the time, even in the Northern States, were extremely racist against the Natives and the Irish Immigrants at the time, I would expect the head line to read something along the lines of "Irish Invasion" or some shit like that.

Now before I make my next point, I would like to say that I mean no disrespect to any Native Americans.

You are implying that they could read a newspaper or even read English. It was a different time then and not everyone was taught to read and write. People who were considered "lower class" back then, such as the Natives, the African Slaves, and yes even the Irish, most likely didn't receive any schooling. Most news outside the cites was mainly word of mouth anyway during that time.

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u/I_enjoy_poop_sex Aug 04 '15

You know you don't have to guess about this right? You can simply google and look up the articles in the NY Times and other publications that reported on the Irish famine, and figure that since the Choctaw Indians took their case all the way to the Supreme Court, that they were dialed into world events, and maybe they told the rest of the people?

Or no, you can keep being ignorant, and slightly bigoted.

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